Surfer Dude bets against SUSY

My colleague and I (both physics PhD students) gave a just-for-fun public lecture on unification (quantum field theory, relativity, and string theory at the popular level) at Burning Man 2006. Garrett Lisi, now referred to in the media as "Surfer Dude", who has recently drawn a lot of press interest for his E8 "Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" and his atypical surfer/snowboarder lifestyle offers us a bet about whether SUSY particles will be found at LHC. We accept and shake hands. The deadline for the bet to pay off has been subsequently agreed upon as Burning Man 2010.

I am the one in the blue shirt on stage. This event occurred on August 30, 2006

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• physics
• susy
• lisi

[TheOrganicartist]

I witnessed this bet lol, that was a fun time in center camp.

[withoutspoon]

sorry, I just noticed you said neutralino-like, not neutrino-like... that makes a lot more sense :)

[withoutspoon]

It's already known that most of the dark matter is not neutrinos. As for MOND/TeVeS, I consider it already ruled out as an alternative to dark matter (it could be there in addition to dark matter, but I see no good motivation for it). I'm not familiar with KATRIN, but <2eV doesn't sound like a terribly interesting bound... I think there are enough other upper-bounds that show us it's smaller than that already.

[10mintwo]

m. I guess all that shitty trance music confused me. Tell me, do you think the KATRIN experiment has the ability to entirely rule out TeVeS, the relativistic extension of MOND, by proving the electron neutrino mass is <2eV, thereby indirectly proving cold dark matter must be something neutralino-like?

[withoutspoon]

I assure you, the bet is the other way around. If we find them, Sean and I win. If we don't, he wins.

If we find sparticles, it will rule out his E8 theory, as well as provide good circumstantial evidence that string theory is on the right track.  He's hoping that we'll find the particles that his theory predicts instead.

[lumajs]

Five bucks? I've made a USD 1000 bet on SUSY at the LHC. ;-) Good luck, guys, anyway.

[bwolfgangw]

eh?